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29-10-2015

Doc Helps Old Romanian Cinemas

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    Cinema Mon Amour by Alexandru Belc Cinema Mon Amour by Alexandru Belc

    BUCHAREST: Alexandru Belc's long documentary Cinema, Mon Amour is part of the campaign Save the Big Screen which has led to the digitalisation of 35 old Romanian cinemas since 2014.

    The film follows Victor Purice, a manager and former projectionist, along with his two employees in their everyday battle to preserve Dacia Panoramic Cinema in Piatra Neamt.

    Hanka Kastelicova through HBO Europe and Tudor Giurgiu through Romania's Libra Film are producing in coproduction with Radovan Sibrt and Viktoria Hozzova through Pink Productions from the Czech Republic. The State Cinematography Fund Czech Republic and MEDIA Programme - Creative Europe supported the production.

    The film will have its world premiere in the Next Masters competition at DokLeipzig on 29 October 2015 and will be released in Romania on HBO in December 2015. Giurgiu told FNE that a caravan will bring it to small towns with no cinemas or deserted cinemas which are part of the former network from the Communist era, RomaniaFilm.

    "We want to create events in these cinemas so as to convince the state to get involved and thus to create a network with modern and digitalised cinemas," Giurgiu told FNE. A crowdfunding campaign will also be launched in spring 2016 aiming to restore and digitalise the cinema Dacia from Piatra Neamt, the "hero" of the film.

    Save the Big Screen campaign was launched by Romanian Film Promotion in partnership with Romanian Film Center and GAV during Transilvania IFF in Cluj-Napoca in 2014.

    Cinema, Mon Amour received the CAT&Docs Award and Croatian Radio Television HRT Award at Docu Rough Cut Boutique at Sarajevo International Film Festival. CAT&Docs is handling the sales.